Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Last Minute Gift

Last week I made some little gifts to give to friends. The recipe is for banana nut bread that my mom used to make a lot. I think the original recipe came from one of those homemade cookbooks from a church or a school. She always added frozen blueberries and I remember several of these wrapped up for teacher gifts when I was young.

I also whipped up some little fabric bags to wrap them in and made some gift tags. The bags fit a mini loaf pan.
To make the bags cut a 20" x 10" piece of fabric. Fold the fabric in half, right sides together lengthwise and sew up the sides. Flatten out the corners of the bag, still inside out, so that the seams are centered. Sew straight across each point, perpendicular to the seams, about 2 inches in from the points. Trim the points, turn the bag right side out and trim the top with pinking shears.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream together butter and sugar.
Add eggs and vanilla and combine.
Add mashed bananas and combine.
Sift dry ingredients. Add lemon juice to milk and let it sit for 5 minutes.
Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture, alternating with the milk and lemon juice. Mix until combined.
Gently stir in the nuts and blueberries.
Pour into 4 greased mini loaf pans. Bake for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick stuck into the middle of a loaf comes out clean.